Eliot Friesen

IELTS Study Guide

IELTS Study Schedule - image by Magoosh

In this guide to Magoosh’s top IELTS study schedules, we’ll tell you why using an IELTS study guide is important and help you choose (or create) the best plan for you!

Most Popular IELTS Study Schedules

Magoosh offers four study guides (also known as “study schedules” or “study plans”) that you can use to organize your IELTS preparation:

Get Your Free GRE One-Month Study Schedule

1 Month Academic IELTS Study Schedule

[printable version]

Looking for a comprehensive One Month Academic IELTS Study Schedule? Get ready for the Academic IELTS with six days of preparation and one rest day a week for four weeks! This IELTS study guide works best with Magoosh IELTS prep, and can be downloaded or printed.
   

Get Your Free IELTS One-Month Study Schedule

1 Month General Training IELTS Study Schedule PDF

With only a month to prepare for the General Training IELTS exam, it’s likely you’re feeling some pressure! Luckily, this General Training IELTS study schedule PDF will guide you through four weeks of IELTS practice using Magoosh IELTS prep online, so you’ll be well prepared on test day.
   
   
   
   
   
Get Your Free GRE Three-Month Study Schedule

1 Week Academic IELTS Study Schedule
[printable version]

Only one week left until the Academic IELTS? Don’t panic! Review our one-week Academic IELTS study schedule to improve your score with seven days of intensive IELTS prep. Like the one-month study schedule, it can be downloaded or printed for easy studying.
   
   

Get Your Free GRE Three-Month Study Schedule

1 Week General Training IELTS Study Schedule PDF

Taking the General Training IELTS in a week? You can still do a lot to prepare at this point if you use your time wisely and efficiently. This one-week General Training IELTS study plan can help you do exactly that! Like the one-month study schedule, this study guide comes as a printable PDF and can be used alongside Magoosh IELTS prep.

 

“How to Use an IELTS Study Plan” Video

To get you started with your new IELTS study schedule, check out this video on how to use an IELTS study guide effectively (and scroll down for a full video transcript).

In this free video, our IELTS expert Eliot will give you a brief introduction, followed by everything you need to know in order to understand and follow an IELTS study plan. In five minutes, you will learn:

  • What is an IELTS study schedule?
  • How do you use an IELTS study schedule?
  • Which IELTS study schedule should you choose?
  • What will be on the Magoosh IELTS study schedule?

“How to Use an IELTS Study Plan” Video Transcript

Hi, I’m Elliott, the IELTS expert at Magoosh and today we’re going to talk about study schedules.

And we’re going to eventually look at an example of a study schedule that we’ve created here at Magoosh.

But to begin, we’re just going to talk a little bit about what study schedules are and how you can use them to improve your studying.

And to really boost your score on the exam by studying in the smartest and the best way possible.

So what is a study schedule?

Well, a study schedule is something to help you organize your time, okay?

You may have one month, or six months, or maybe just a week.

And the question a study schedule helps you answer is “how can organize my time the most efficiently?”

And “what’s gonna benefit the most in terms of increasing my score or helping me at least to do the best I can on the exam?” Okay?

So a study schedule gives you materials to study, to pace yourself over time in an appropriate way in order to make your studying the most efficient it can be.

Okay, another thing a study schedule does is, it prioritizes subject matter.

So some things are more important to study than others, depending on how much time you have.

For example of you have six months to study, that’s a long time to prepare.

And it might make sense for you to sign up for some classes.

And it might make sense for you to do a lot of self study with grammar, or writing, or other things that are generally going to improve your English skills.

If you only have a week to study before an exam, a big exam like the IELTS, that kind of studying is not going to benefit you as much.

You simply don’t have time in one week in order to really improve your grammar let’s say, right?

You don’t have time to spend a lot of time doing exercises and things like that.

And besides if you did that you would be ignoring important things like learning about the exam and what kinds of questions to expect.

And taking practice questions in learning about timing and other things that are important for the reading or the writing section for example.

So, a study schedule helps you to prioritize what is the most important thing to study in the amount of time you have before taking the test.

So, we have as an example of a study schedule.

At Magoosh, we’ve created a one month study schedule with these kinds of concepts in mind, okay?

We’re going to take a look at that, you can look at that schedule if you click on the link that’s in the description box below to see what the study schedule looks like.

Basically, it’s organized around a couple of things.

First of all, Magoosh lessons, lessons to help you learn about the kinds of things to expect on the exam.

Each section is covered with tips and strategies there to help you learn, how to succeed in each of these sections.

Also, of course, you need to take a lot of practice questions. And so there’s guidance there about what questions to answer, what kinds of questions to answer, and how many of them you should schedule for yourself on a particular day.

We also include information related to official practice questions, right? We also put ideas about what you could study, and what kinds of questions you could answer from official materials produced by IELTS itself.

So those links, those descriptions are there for you In order to supplement your study that you would do with Magoosh on this study schedule.

Also then of course there are additional things, things like reminding you to study vocabulary everyday, okay?

Or scheduling how frequently you want to take a full length practice test, right?

These timing, these elements of timing are a critical part of any study schedule, because you don’t want to study too little, right?

You wanna use your time the best you can and to sort of motivate yourself to study a little bit every day.

But also of course, if you studied for 10 to 12 hours a day, of course that would be too much.

The study schedule that we’ve created at Magoosh assumes that you can study for an hour to up to three hours every day, and that will depend on everybody, right?

Your situation will be unique for yourself.

Okay, so as you make your way through the study schedule, each week there’s six days of material there pushing you to study new things each day.

And also to review concepts and to review things that you’ve learned from you’re lessons from doing lot’s of practice questions, so that you can build a new knowledge and improve over time.

So, check out the study schedule and like this video if you found it helpful.

And if you have questions, go ahead and put them in the comments below.

And we’ll answer your questions about study schedules generally or the one that we’ve posted here.

So good luck with your studies!

Why is an IELTS study guide important?

Making or following a study schedule can seem like a lot of work, but using a study plan will actually save you time during your IELTS prep! Organizing your studies with a schedule will help you to keep your IELTS preparation on track, and ensures you won’t have to cram in anything at the end. Plus, using a study plan can help you to pinpoint where your strengths and weaknesses are, which will show you where you need to improve!

What should I do before making a new IELTS template for my studies?

You need to do some research work before making the template, or study plan. First, you need to understand the test format of the IELTS so that you can be familiar with the different test versions, test process, and the tasks. Also, you need to know how the IELTS score is calculated so that you can predict how you will score. Check out our posts on the IELTS test format and how the IELTS scores are calculated! Then, find a high-quality IELTS prep product (hey, we might be able to help you there!)

How Should I use Magoosh’s IELTS Essay Scoring Service in my Study Plan?

Magoosh offers IELTS essay feedback to our premium subscribers. Those with a six-month Magoosh IELTS subscription can get up to four of their essays scored. The one-month plan includes one scored essay. While we don’t strictly require the use of essay grading in our IELTS study schedules, it can definitely be useful.

If you have just one essay credit, it’s good to use that credit in the first week of your study plan. That way you can check your Writing “baseline” and get some feedback on how you should improve over the course of your study schedule.

If you have four essay credits, it’s still get one essay scored at the beginning. However, from there, you should space your remaining essays evenly throughout the rest of your schedule. That way, you can periodically re-check your progress. And the feedback you receive can help you decide which Writing skills to focus on in a given week. 

How to make an IELTS study guide?

Set a goal

The first step is to set a goal for yourself. The goal should be based on the minimum requirements of your dream schools. Check the admission websites of those schools and find out their requirements on the overall IELTS score and on different parts!

Find out your weaknesses

Before making the exact plan, you can do a full length practice test to check your level. Then you can find out your strengths and weaknesses in different parts. For example, some students are better at reading and writing while some have better skills in listening and speaking. Even within the same section, you will do better on some types of questions. Check out our IELTS full length practice tests to find out your weaknesses!

Plan daily and weekly practice

This is the most complex step in making an IELTS study plan, because an effective study plan should meet your personal needs. Here are some useful tips!

First of all, you need to find your spare time. If you are busy with your studies or work, you can study for the IELTS one or two hours each work day. Weekends are probably the best time for you to prepare for the test.

Then you need to consider how much time you have before your test (another good reason to complete IELTS registration and start prep early!). A study plan for three months is different from a study plan for one month. If your time is limited, you need to focus more on your weaknesses rather than every part of the IELTS. For example, if you are already a good listener and reader, you can practice speaking and writing each day, and then do full length practice tests on weekends.

Here is a sample study plan.

Mondays 8:00pm-10:00pm 30mins listening practice
30mins practice speaking questions
60mins read writing task 1 samples and write
Tuesdays 8:00pm-10:00pm 30mins reading practice
30mins practice speaking questions
60mins read writing task 2 samples and write
Wednesdays 8:00pm-10:00pm 30mins listening practice
30mins practice speaking topics
60mins modify writing
Thursdays 8:00pm-10:00pm 30mins reading practice
30mins practice speaking topics
60mins read writing task 1 samples and write
Fridays 8:00pm-10:00pm 30mins review new words in listening and reading
30mins practice speaking discussions
60mins read writing task 2 samples and write
Saturday afternoons 2hr 45mins do a full length test
15mins check answers
60mins modify writings
Sunday afternoons 2hr 45mins do a full length test
15mins check answers
30mins review your notes for the whole week

Note: This study plan is only a suggestion. You need to customize your IELTS study plan based on the tips above.

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